BP successfully clogs drain your well located in the Gulf of Mexico

The oil company BP said Thursday it has completed its well plugging with cement damaged in the Gulf of Mexico, in an operation close to the U.S. government bringing an end to the worst environmental disaster in its history.
The success of capping assumes completion of the operation 'static kill' (static phase), the most ambitious oil company has undertaken so far to stop the leak.

However, retired Adm. Thad Allen, who coordinates the response to dumping by the U.S. government said Thursday in a press conference that this "is not the end" of the disaster that has ravaged the waters of Gulf, but "a key step to ensure that no more oil is poured into the ocean."
Allen BP gave the green light to proceed with the introduction of cement into the well on Wednesday, hours after the company announced the success of the first phase of the strategy of sealing, which was to push the oil to the bottom of the tank with the injection of more than 2,300 barrels of heavy mud.

Engineers working for the sealing of the leak were inclined to proceed with the fuel tank cap without waiting to complete the excavation of an auxiliary shaft, which is considered the ultimate solution to landfill.
The auxiliary shaft of about 5,500 meters deep, will close the bottom of the tank that caused the spill by a process dubbed "bottom-kill '(removal from the bottom), through a new round of heavy mud and cement .
The foundation of the auxiliary shaft, provided by BP on 15 August, will be the real beginning of the last phase of the operation to seal the well, which has shed 4.9 million barrels of oil into the ocean since April, when a platform the company collapsed and fell on the tank.

74% of the total crude oil released into the ocean since been collected, burned, vaporized or decomposed by natural processes, according to a scientific report presented on Wednesday the energy adviser to the White House, Carol Browner.
However, according to Browner, the clean and "the help of Mother Nature" will be crucial in the coming months to offset the crude oil that remains on the coast and floating in a residual microscopic particles in the ocean.

The U.S. president, Barack Obama said Wednesday that the fight to contain the spill "is finally coming to an end" and praised the efforts to stem the black tide "has turned on its head" the lives of thousands of people.
On the other hand, Allen said Thursday that the administration "will continue its efforts to compensate" for those affected in the southeastern states of the country and will continue to press BP to assume "full responsibility" in the disaster.
It should be noted that the engineers who carried out the injection of heavy mud yet to determine whether there is any leakage outside the main duct, a process that requires complicated shots of measuring pressure fluctuations in the well failed.
"It seems that the mud pump step directly from the pipeline", on Wednesday said Kent Wells, executive vice president of BP. "We've reached a good point, but we must now make it permanent," he said.

Hackers look for ways to attack power plants

Hackers have a new target in the sights: the powr plants and other basic infrastructure around the world, which want to control operations. This has intensified efforts to strengthen security measures dilapidated and vulnerable systems.
Cyber criminals have long sought - sometimes successfully - to penetrate network of major facilities. In July, the researchers found a computer code called "worm" (worm), created specifically to take control of the systems that run the internal operation of industrial plants.
The vulnerability is probably larger in countries like the U.S., where 85% of critical infrastructure in private hands, which control power plants and nuclear power, transportation systems and other vital services.

"The ability to interfere with industrial control systems has increased," said Sean McGurk, director of the office of security control systems of the Department of Homeland Security of the United States. "This type of malicious code and others we've seen in recent times strike the physical components of a system, the devices that open and close doors, which make cars. Do not simply point to the ones and zeros (computer codes ), take aim at the aircraft by physical processes "of a plant.
It is unclear whether the "worm" has already affected some system of operations.

In the past, hackers trying to penetrate the computer systems of a firm to steal or manipulate information. Such interference sometimes caused the suspension of operations.
But last year the threat increased when hackers began exploiting weaknesses in the systems that control the operation of a plant.
The "worm" latest, called Stuxnet, more disturbing still, because they are creating code that can assume control of systems.
Often plants operating systems and other facilities are old and are not fully independent computer networks that employ firms to manage their business operations or control access to the internet itself.
That connection administrative network control systems give hackers the ability to insert code, viruses or "worms" harmful programs that operate the plants.
The "worm" was discovered in Germany and has been used in several attacks, especially in Iran, Indonesia, India and the United States, according to Microsoft. Stuxnet tried to infect 6,000 computers to mid-July, according to Microsoft.
The virus could penetrate some operating systems that contain software designed by the German company Siemens AG, exploiting a vulnerability in several versions of Microsoft Windows program.

Both Microsoft and Siemens are taking steps to tackle the problem.

The U.S. authorities have prepared reports detailing the vulnerabilities of industrial computer systems and has called on firms to improve their security measures, using the latest software, change and keys, restricting access to critical systems and using firewalls to isolate the networks that control the basic systems.

The Department of Energy United States warned in May that a successful attack on control systems "can cause catastrophic damage."
In the past year, the Homeland Security Department sent to different parts of the country teams of experts to analyze the vulnerability of industrial control systems. That unit set up four teams and plans to form another ten in the next year.These experts identified nine cases of infiltration, including one in which a corporate executive went to a conference and copied the presentation to a memory stick (flash drive).
One document was infected with the virus Mariposa, which has been detected in 12 million computers worldwide, including 40 large banks.

When the executive returned to his office and his computer connected to the corporate network, the virus spread and attacked another 100 computers.

Environmentalists call for a 'Law of Climate Change "to force to reduce CO2

The environmental organization Friends of the Earth considers essential the creation of a 'law against climate change' on Spain, which regulates and establishes the safe reduction of emissions of polluting gases into the atmosphere as the only way to tackle this serious problem.

So says the report 'Opportunities for Climate Change Law in Spain based on carbon budgets', which have submitted and which have designated as priority projects to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) and the constitution legal legislative framework.

For the charge of the area of climate change Friends of the Earth, Alejandro González, is "setting annual targets for reducing emissions of greenhouse gases of at least 3% and force governments to fulfill their commitments."
For carbon budget, say the ecologists, the term "the establishment of an emission limit that can be released in a given period of time by a group of sectors or entities."The Kyoto Protocol, which entered into force in 2005 and ended in 2012, sets limits on emissions of greenhouse gases in industrialized countries and Spain committed (within EU) condemned Gonzalez not to increase their emissions GHG in the period beyond 15% over 1990. "

The impact of the crisis

The evolution of gas emissions in Spain has been increasing until the year 2007 that were released into the atmosphere 437.677 million tonnes of CO2, to start a drop from 2008 when they fell to 405 048 tonnes of CO2, complaint Friends of the Earth, citing figures from the administration.

The NGO attributes this reduction in 2008 "to a significant increase in renewable energy and economic wear by the economic crisis in Spain but not suffer a serious government policy."
For environmentalists, the solution lies in implementing a climate change law based on carbon budgets that help establish the foundation for climate justice. "
Since the organization is to strengthen the national and international policy framework and put a cap on GHG emissions in each sector issuers for a period of time annually.

Environmentalists call for a Law of Climate Change

Thus, there is a mechanism for secure and controlled reduction with each responsible for the emissions has a legal obligation to reduce them and agrees to budget planning in advance by creating a predictable economic scenario in the long term.
The report is part of the campaign of Friends of the Earth's climate SOS, called "The Big Ask" in Europe, demand in 18 countries national legislation to reduce GHG emissions annually.

This report is the first to introduce these concepts in Spain, "said Alejandro González and" we expect the approach to policy-makers, economic sectors and the Spanish civil society. "